Radio's Voices
by Voidcoffee
Summary: Au where Carlos has a science podcast around the same time as Cecil. For so long Cecil rants about how his show is better, until he ends up meeting Carlos in real life and - oh my god Credit to @the-great-glow-cloud and @shitty-night-vale-aus on Tumblr for the AU!


Cecil had been ranting about the new scientist's radio show for as long as it had been on now. "Carlos' Science Hour" – a terrible name, according to him. What was even more terrible was that it was on around the same time as his own show, which meant that he'd never really listened to it. He'd heard snippets of it, sure, but never actually the whole show. He didn't want to either. Carlos' voice sounded...strange through the radio. Robotic. Cecil couldn't imagine how a show about science could mess the setup up so badly.

Also, it was **boring**. Cecil never had anything against science. He'd never been a massive fan either. To him, science was just _there_. But the way the show was organized just made it all sound even more boring. Generally, Carlos would ramble on about one specific scientific theme for the whole episode – no breaks. If he'd take a break every now and then and talk about something else, it would probably be a whole lot less boring, according to Cecil.

Nevertheless, the show had a steady audience of listeners – one of them being Steve Carlsburg. That was part of the reason Cecil hated the show as well, although he'd never admit it. The show also got good ratings from a large proportion of Night Vale. Most of the citizens teased Cecil with his hatred towards the show.

"You're just worried he's going to become more popular than you!"  
"Admit it, you _**love**_ the show. You gotta."  
Some of them were right. Most of them weren't. Cecil would never admit the first, though. Not his style.

* * *

On a particularly hot Wednesday afternoon, mayor Dana Cardinal announced that there was something wrong with the rocks out in the desert. She also announced no one should be worried about this and that it was City Council who wanted her to announce this. When asked why, she replied that she didn't know either, but that, since it was City Council, it seemed like a wise idea to follow their instructions.

At that press conference, Cecil bumped into a guy. He'd never seen him before, nor did he recognize his voice at first.

 **Crash  
** "I am so so-"  
"He-"  
Cecil's eyes fell upon the man's name tag. _Why was he wearing a name tag_? It read "Carlos" in messy handwriting, as if it were written quickly before a municipal police officer would cut off the writer's pinky finger. Which would make sense, considering that was a pretty standard punishment for using writing utensils.

"Oh! You're Cecil, right? I recognize your voice from the radio," Carlos said, smiling, his perfectly white teeth reflecting the bright light of the desert sun. Cecil turned red, worried the man had also heard the less-than-stellar reviews Cecil had given of his show. But he'd also turned red for another reason; Carlos sounded way better than he'd ever done on the radio, and he looked better than Cecil had ever imagined.  
"Oh uhm, y-yeah. I'm Cecil! That's me! Local radio host Cecil Palmer over here!" He felt like a complete idiot. He was expecting Carlos to laugh awkwardly and walk away. But he didn't. Well, he laughed, but not awkwardly. He laughed like...a friend? Like someone who cared about you.

"It's great to meet you. I wish we could've met earlier, but hey, now we have, I was wondering if you could help me investigate those rocks. It'd be a great topic to cover on my show, and you could talk about it on yours as well." Cecil couldn't do more than nod, and follow Carlos, oh great, wonderful Carlos, as he walked over to his truck and jumped in.

Cecil sat awkwardly and silent in the passenger's seat as they drove out of Night Vale and towards the desert. Carlos seemed a bit off as well. Cecil guessed he was thinking about the rocks, coming up with different hypotheses and such. Cecil was wrong, but he didn't know.

Carlos had also noticed Cecil behaved a bit off. Not that he really knew, of course, seeing as he'd never met the man before. But he felt like he had a pretty solid idea of what Cecil was like normally, since he'd spend many hours listening to his broadcast. He guessed Cecil didn't really like him. Honestly, that didn't come as a surprise to him, considering the things Cecil had said about his show on the air. Carlos was wrong, but he didn't know.

After a silent drive (The truck's radio didn't work for some unknown reason), they finally arrived at the edge of town, past where Old Woman Josie and her possibly angelic friends lived. As they stepped out of the truck, they noticed the rocks. Unlike the rocks' normal behavior, namely sitting still for prolonged periods of time, they were now rolling about, as if they were bowling balls on their ways to the end of the lane to inevitably end up in the gutter, even if you thought it was going so well. Goddamnit bowling balls, goddamnit.

"So, uhm, I'm no scientist, but I don't think rocks normally move. B-but as I said, I'm not a scientist. I know nothing of science even. Science? I barely even met he- **him**! Haha hah ha...ahem. Anyways..." was Cecil's incredibly awkward first remark.

"No, they don't. I'll have to run a few tests, but I think there may be something wrong with the magnetic field around here, which would explain the radio's sudden malfunctioning as well," Carlos replied. He turned around to face Cecil. "You can help me if you want?" he offered, smiling kindly.

* * *

As the afternoon grew into early evening, the two men grew closer and closer. And, as the stars popped out from the veil left by the sun's light, as did a question. It had hung in the air for a little while now, like honeysuckle. Only not honeysuckle, because they were in a desert. There's no honeysuckle in the desert. You're hallucinating.

"Cecil?"  
"Yes, Carlos?"  
"Would you like to, uhm, you don't have to, but would you, scientifically speaking, of course, like to have dinner with me? Strictly from a scientific point of vi-"  
"Yes, Carlos. I'd love to."


End file.
